Dubai: Residents could be paying bills through chats in the near future

Time is not too far when people will no longer be accessing multiple websites or apps to pay their bills and transactions and instead paying their bills through chats as technological advancements in Dubai will take quality of life to the next level.

On Wednesday, Digital Dubai and the Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DCAI) launched Dubai AI, which is a generative AI-powered platform for residents to obtain information or even run a few transactions and services.

Dr Moza Suwaidan, CEO of the digital applications and platforms sector, Digital Dubai, sees the government services transforming in a few years, whereby users will no longer need to go to websites and mobile applications. “We see them interacting with someone through a chat, saying: ‘I want to pay my bills; here is my account number — send me the confirmation’,” she said during a panel discussion, on the first day of the Dubai Assembly for Generative AI conference held at the Museum of the Future.

With the technological advances, industry executives and people around the world want some human brain element too, which could answer their questions and solve their problems. For example, many companies keep their customers waiting for a long time on the phone before their calls are answered. Instead, if companies provide chat services, that would help customers answer their queries and clear any doubt about services or payments.

“We see the government being an enabler and not being so much an operator… The way we offer services will drastically change and our role in the future will be much more focused on enablement and regulation as opposed to operating different services and systems,” said Dr Suwaidan during the panel discussion.

Technology used for wrong purposes

She also called for having ethical controls in place that reduce the chance of technology being used for the wrong purposes. She stressed that big technology players will have a big role in putting a framework.

In addition, she noted that individuals need to take responsibility for sharing their information in public domains instead of later claiming that their privacy has been jeopardised.

“We are not trying to regulate technology, but human beings. Because the issue is humans use technology in a way that harms humanity. We can solve technology with any kind of framework and control. You can shut it down. It is humans we need to guide in the proper use of technology. This is why the problem is complex. It is not easy to do,” she told the audience.

She added that AI has been around for 40 years and the problem of privacy and security has also been there for a similar number of years.

“We are still talking about the same issue. However, there are not many actions happening to mitigate risks. There are issues of privacy but there are solutions, too. There is no unified effort,” she added.

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